


The Good Place

by JameWii



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014), The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25318936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JameWii/pseuds/JameWii
Summary: When Tadashi opens his eyes, he doesn't know where he is, but he feels peaceful. Relaxed. "Everything is fine" is written on the wall he's looking at with green letters. He can't help but smile, because he somehow knows it's true. A door opens, and he's greeted by a tall man dressed in a fancy grey suit coat and fitting pants. His hair is white and there are a few wrinkles in his face that get deeper when he smiles. He's never seen him in his entire life, but he still somehow doesn't question it when he says: "Tadashi? Please come in." He nods, gets up and follows him into a spacious office, where he gets told to sit down in front of an old wooden desk. The older man takes his seat on the other side of it and says with a voice that is way too casual: "Tadashi...you are dead."
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	The Good Place

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't know why. Just thought this would be a fun concept lol I don't know where I'm taking this story yet. I honestly just wanted to see Tadashi in the afterlife.  
> Depending on how much I'll write for this, there might be spoilers for The Good Place. This takes place during season 1 and starts at the very beginning of it, so technically you can also read this if you never watched the Good Place.

Tadashi doesn't want to go in there. His stomach is churning at the sight of the burning building, the heat is almost unbearable despite the fact that he's still so far away.  
He feels guilty; it should be a no-brainer that if you are in a position to help, you do it, no questions asked. And he, an able-bodied college student in his best years is in the very best position to do just that, thank you very much, so standing here, wasting time, staring at the fire that would without a doubt be the death of his professor, who had done so much for mankind, made him feel incredibly ashamed. His brain kept coming up with excuses in a one second rhythm.

_Why not wait until the firefighters arrive?_

_Why not wait until the police arrives?_

_Why not wait?_

But he knows none of these are an option. The firefighters and the police will take far too long; by the time they get here, his professor will likely be dead already. And standing here and doing nothing isn't even up to debate. No matter how he twists and turns it in his head, he knows what he has to do. And his conflicted emotions are not an excuse to stand here and ignore what's going on. Mind finally made up, he tries to run towards the building, when suddenly he feels someone tug at his sleeve. He turns around, and is met with the big pleading eyes of his little brother that seem shocked at the fact that Tadashi is even _considering_ going in there.

"Tadashi!", Hiro exclaims, and his expression is confused, fearful, panicked even. And still he somehow manages to look exasperated, successfully conveying the message "Come on, man, are you for freaking real right now? Have you noticed the giant _fire?_ " .

Hiro can say so many things with just one pointed look. And it almost convinces Tadashi, but it's still not enough. 

His voice is shaking, sounding very unsteady and not as resolute as he wishes when he says "Callaghan is still in there. Someone has to help."

He wishes Hiro would tighten his grip and hold him back. Or throw a fit like he used to when he was still a little kid. Or give him a well structured, irrefutable argument of why going in there is a bad idea. Maybe then he'd have an excuse to not go. Maybe then the firefighters will suddenly arrive, and go into the building instead of him, and everything will be alright. He figures that would be a good excuse, and again the guilt weighs heavily in his chest.

Hiro, of course, does none of these things. His eyes widen a little, his panic freezing him in place for a moment, and now Tadashi feels guilty for an entirely new reason. But he can't be considerate of that now. Not when human lives are at stake. A particular kind of sickness fills his stomach, the one that almost makes it impossible for him to move, but he knows he has to. He breaks away from Hiro's soft grip, takes another second before he turns around and runs in, hoping for a miracle, for backup, for someone to hold him back somehow, _anything._ But Hiro is frozen in place and the rest of the people is too busy aimlessly running around, screaming and crying. When he starts sprinting up the stairs, nobody stops him. His survival instinct kicks in and it becomes almost physically impossible to go any farther when he feels the heat come closer and closer, but he has to keep going.

He doesn't know if he can live with himself if a human being died because he didn't do absolutely everything in his might trying to prevent it, no matter how futile the attempt may be.

Finally, the adrenaline sets in. He still just wants to turn around and go home, but he feels at least a bit braver now. The air inside the building is so dry and hot, he immediately starts coughing. Without thinking much, he gets on all fours and puts the hem of his shirt over his nose. It's a bit better down here, but he still feels like his mission is probably doomed to fail. As quickly as possible, he crawls his way through the flames. Sharp little metal parts poke his knees and palms, and it's ridiculous how much it bothers him considering the blazing hot flames that are surrounding him. He doesn't spare a look at all the broken science projects lying around the room, although he does hope to save at least some of his brother's microbots he's worked so hard for.

His heart is almost jumping out of his chest, it's becoming hotter and hotter in here, and suddenly he knows with absolute certainity that he's too far in now and that he won't make it out without help.

"Professor Callaghan!", he tries to call, but out come just a few coughs. "Professor-"

Somehow, he knows what's going to happen right before it happens. He thinks he can hear his brother from the outside yell his name, and then there's a noise that is so unbearably loud that it makes his insides crawl. Then there's a short second of pain in every part of his body. It feels like he's being torn apart, limb by limb, and maybe he is, because his perspective changes right before everything goes black. The last thing he hears is his brother yelling for him yet again.

* * *

As soon as Cass hears the university is burning, she knows that her nephews are in trouble. Of course she saw them exit the building, so technically, they should be safe, but she knows her boys too well by now. So well that she has to force herself to calm down because otherwise, she'll get a panic attack right here, right now.

One of them is inside the building, she knows it. Or maybe even both of them. Either Tadashi ran in there to look for survivors he can save, or Hiro ran in there to look for his microbots, or both ran in there because if Hiro managed to escape Tadashi's eyes and go into the building, there's no way Tadashi wouldn't follow him.

She loves her nephews, and she adores Hiro's passion and Tadashi's kind heart, but right now she hates them both for it, and if they went in there and made it out alive, she'll make sure to kill them. A loud bang stops her dead in her tracks and she knows that the university just exploded and that if someone was in there, they couldn't have survived. She forces herself to breathe again and calm down. In a second, she tells herself, she's going to feel very stupid about this whole thing. This fire will be the talk of the town for a few weeks, but ultimately just something to be forgotten in the future, an unfortunate event with no casualties. But then she heard Hiro. 

"Tadashi! _Tadaaashii!"_

And she thinks she's going to faint. She has flashbacks to the night the police was suddenly standing in front of her door, telling her about the unfortunate accident that erased half of her family. About how she cried all night and basically wasn't responsive for another week or so. Until she took her nephews in and, although she had no idea how kids worked, promised she would look out for them and protect them with her life since they were all that was left for her. How she worried and fussed, how vulnerable and fragile these kids were, how soft their skin was, how easily it bruised, how this fact _terrified_ her, how she thought it would get easier once they grew into steadier, stronger teenagers, how she realized how wrong she was, how she now had to worry about them in different ways for different reasons. And when she finishes that thought, she's standing in front of Hiro, frantically crying and hugging him, and she doesn't remember how she got here. She's just happy he's okay. 

But he's crying, so at the same time, she guesses, everything is so, so not okay.

Hiro isn't hugging her back because he's clutching a hat to his chest that she knows all to well, and then the realization finally sinks in. She feels like she's falling into a deep black hole, hopelessly clawing at the walls to give her support, but they are too far away. Seven year old Tadashi comes to her mind, with his big, naive eyes, smiling at her for the first time since his parents' death, and he's holding a piece of paper in his hand. With crayons and impressive precision for a kid he had drawn a woman and two children on it. "For you, Aunt Cass!", he had said, showing his wide tooth gap because two days before, he had lost a baby tooth.

And as Cass remembers this, she vomits. She's thrown the picture away one day when she dejunked the house.

* * *

That night, neither of them sleep. They sit in the café, together with GoGo, Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Fred, and they're drinking tea. Well, the kids are. Aunt Cass has a glass of wine in her hand. The lights aren't on as if they would enhance the awful truth of what happened today. No words of solace are spoken because there's nothing anyone can say that can make Tadashi's death in any way more bearable.

GoGo looks angry. Cass knows if she could punch the table and curse Tadashi out for being such an idiot, she'd feel better, but she doesn't do it because it wouldn't be tactful. Cass almost wishes she did because she's feeling the same way. If Tadashi was here, she'd slap him in the face. She'd shake him silly, she'd yell at him, she'd ground him for eternity, without any regard for the fact that he is- he _was-_ over eighteen already.

Honey Lemon looks like she still can't believe what happened. She's blankly staring ahead with the mug in her hands. The tea isn't hot anymore. No one has taken a sip.

Wasabi looks at the table, he looks concentrated, as if he's trying to make sense of it all. Fred looks so uncharacteristically sad, and Cass could swear that his eyes are a bit red too.  
Hiro, of course, is the worst. He looks like he's not even present. Like he has retreated to a place deep inside his mind where no one can reach him. Cass supposes it's okay for now, but she's scared she won't be able to get him out of there again.

And she herself, she still isn't willing to accept the reality of the circumstances. She still thinks this is a dream. She still thinks that Tadashi is in his lab, overworking himself yet again, and tomorrow he'll call her, say "Hey Auntie, I'm sorry I didn't come home last night, I hope you weren't too worried! I'll be home by six tonight, I promise!" and she'll give him a piece of her mind for not answering her calls and texts. She keeps looking at her phone because she actually _has_ called and texted him, but the two ticks still haven't turned blue, and she's starting to get anxious that maybe, all of this is real.

Surprisingly, it's Hiro who eventually breaks the silence, and he sounds years younger. "What do you think where he is now?"

And that's when Honey Lemon starts crying, and Cass wants to cry too. Her voice is shaking when she says: "I don't know, Hiro. I really don't know. But wherever he is, I'm sure he's happy."

* * *

When Tadashi opens his eyes, he doesn't know where he is or what happened, but he feels a kind of calm wash over him that he's never experienced before. His mind is hazy and unclear. All he can make out is that he's sitting on a white couch in an otherwise sparce room. To his left, there's a wooden door. "Everything is fine" is written on the wall he's looking at with sober green letters. He can't help but smile, because he somehow knows it's true. In both corners of the wall, there are wooden pedestals with white flowers on them. It reminds him a bit of church decoration.

The door opens, and he's greeted by a tall man dressed in a fancy grey suit coat and fitting pants. His hair is white, he's wearing glasses and there are a few wrinkles in his face that get deeper when he smiles. He's obviously pretty old already, but he still stands upright and moves as smoothly as a cat. Tadashi can't help but smile back at him. He's never seen him in his entire life, but he still somehow doesn't question it when he says: "Tadashi? Please come in." Tadashi nods, gets up and follows him into a spacious office with large windows that he somehow can't look out of because everything out there is...white. A few meters in front of the wall, there's a heavy wooden desk. It looks expensive, and Tadashi feels the urge to run his fingers over the smooth surface.

"Please, have a seat," the man says and points him to a brown fabric chair in front of the desk. 

"Thank you," he replies politely. When he sits down, he thinks that this is the most comfortable chair he's ever been in. It's what he imagined sitting on a cloud must feel like when he was a kid. Now, of course, that thought is ridiculous because you can't possibly sit on a cloud. How foolish he had been back then.

The older man takes a seat at the other side of the table and suddenly looks very serious.

"Welcome, Tadashi. My name is Michael." His voice sounds rough and old, but still strong enough to convince Tadashi that this man could be intimidating if he wanted to. His foggy mind starts to become clearer, and suddenly he wonders why the man doesn't use their last names. "Do you know why you're here?"

He feels feels heat rise to his cheeks as he realizes that no, he doesn't know. Here he is, in this expensively furnished office, sitting in front of a formally dressed man with a now very concerned expression, and he has no idea what he's doing here in the first place. Whatever his intention was to come here, he's not going to leave a good impression. He scratches the back of his head and thinks very hard about reasons why he would possibly come to a place like this, and why on earth he can't even remember coming here. He can only think of one thing of importance that would lead him to such a professional looking place.

"I...I guess... I got an invention for you that will be very beneficial for all of humanity. It will....revolutionize our medical system...?" he tries, feeling his cheeks burn and his heartbeat speed up. He doesn't think Baymax is the reason he came here, because if he was, he would have the medical robot with him. But it's the only guess he has. The only one that makes sense, anyway. Except nothing here makes sense.

Michael raises his eyebrows, folding his hands in front of him. "I take it you don't know."

Tadashi feels sick. "I...I am so sorry....Michael." This whole thing is so weird. He almost doesn't manage to say his name because of how absurd it is to call a person you don't know by his first name, especially in a business related environment. "I'm just...I honestly have no idea how this could happen, but I really don't know what I'm doing here. I....believe me that I was not intending to waste your time like this. Apologies again. I'm going to leave."

He stands up.

"Oh? And where will you go?", Michael asks almost teasingly.

Tadashi frowns, feeling a tiny spark of anger in his chest. He starts to get the impression that he's the one who is being toyed with. His consciousness gets a bit less hazy again, and suddenly he starts realizing just _how_ weird it is to be waking up at a place you don't know and not remember anything that happened. Drugs can't be the issue, Tadashi would never in a million years take any voluntarily. So...had he taken them involuntarily? Had he been kidnapped?

The peaceful calm from a few minutes gets replaced by a new kind of dread. "Home," he says, sounding a lot more confident than he feels. He thinks of his little brother and how he's not going to be able to look out for him anymore if he's being kept here. The thought makes him squirm uncomfortably, more so than the fact that he has no idea what this man wants from him.

Michael however just smiles at him, and it looks sad. "I'm afraid that's not possible."

The dread takes over his whole body when Tadashi realizes his assumption is true; he's really, seriously being kidnapped. He stumbles and sinks back into the chair that suddenly doesn't feel so comfortable anymore. "What do you want? Why did you bring me here?", he asks, trying to sound threatening, but failing miserably. His heart is beating fast against his ribcage. The last time he was so scared was when... he gasps at the sudden storm of memories that come to him. Of hot flames engulfing him, air too hot to breathe, smoke everywhere, and then that loud, sickening sound... is he in a hospital? But why isn't he in a bed then? And why is he not hurt?

"Tadashi...you are dead."

Tadashi freezes. For a moment, he's taken aback, but then he makes a sound that can only be described as inane laughter. This whole ordeal is already overwhelming him. He just wants to go back home to Aunt Cassie and Hiro. _"Sure._ And how are we having this conversation then?"

"Simple, this is what we call the afterlife."

"Huh. _Duh,_ " Tadashi gets out, sinking back in his chair and staring at nothing with wide eyes.

"I know this is a lot, but bear with me. I will show you around in a minute and then you can get comfortable. To answer the questions you probably have: no, we don't have heaven and hell, but we do have something called the Good Place and the Bad Place." 

Tadashi doesn't know why he's still listening to this guy. If he wasn't raised to be polite, he would have jumped to his feed and gotten out of here as fast as he could.

"But there's no need to worry for you; you've made it into the Good Place." Michael smiles reassuringly, and for some odd reason, Tadashi actually feels it working. "Also, there's no 'God' or 'Devil' in that sense. We have architects here who design neighbourhoods for you to live in based on your preferred lifestyles. I designed the one you're going to spend eternity in."

"E _ternity,"_ Tadashi gasps. This is too much and too little information at once. His head is spinning. Then he straightens up, trying to get his thoughts sorted out, and says with the most adult voice he can muster: "Listen, I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm going to have to report you to the police. What you're doing is insane. I do hope that this will be a learning experience for you."

Michael actually has the nerve to look amused. "Listen, it happens very often that the people who come here have a hard time coping with their death, or even believing it. Unfortunately, the memories of how you died get wiped out for a short amount of time after you wake up here to spare you of information overflow and trauma. You will retain those memories gradually over time; only in cases of very embarrassing deaths, the memories get wiped out forever. Would you prefer to hear it from me?"

Tadashi sighs. "Go ahead."

Michael opens a drawer on his desk and pulls out a thin file. He opens it, studies it for a moment, and then looks directly at the young man. "Tadashi, you died a very heroic death. You ran into a burning university to save your college professor. Unfortunately, moments after you ran in, the building exploded."

That makes sense, Tadashi thinks, pondering the memories of the fire that just went through his head.

"Okay...and...what about the professor? Why isn't he here? He can't possibly have survived."

"Oh, yes, about that; he actually did, using your brother's invention to protect himself, so even though you had great intentions, you kind of died for nothing." 

"Oh god..." Tadashi puts his hand on his forehead. "H-how is Hiro dealing with all that?"

Michael sighs. "I'm sorry, Tadashi, but I can only tell you about your death and your past life. The life of other living beings is none of my business until they die. As of right now, your brother along with all other humans is just a little dot on a map for me. But if you don't mind me being blunt, since he watched you run into the building and saw it explode, I imagine he's not doing too well."

Tadashi groans and puts his face in his hands. He wants to cry. What a fool he has been. The only thing his death has done is causing misery to those he left behind. The memory of Hiro's big pleading eyes comes back and he almost loses it.  
A fourteen year old should never see what Hiro had seen that night, and a fourteen year old should never have to try and talk his older, oh-so-responsible brother out of a suicide mission. He hopes Hiro doesn't blame himself.

"Anyway, enough of the death talk!", Michael says, clapping his hands together. "Would you like to see your new forever home?" 

"Please, don't call it that," Tadashi groans, not looking up from his hands.

"Oh, you'll come to terms with it soon enough, buddy. I'll tell you what, here in the Good Place, you're actually kind of a celebrity."

 _That_ gets his attention. His head snaps up from his hands and he looks at Michael with despair. "A....celebrity?"

"A celebrity," he confirms. "See, you sacrificed your life for someone else. That's already impressive enough, but what really made it stand out was the fact that you were very aware of the fact that you would probably die, and you were, for lack of a better word, scared shirtless."

Tadashi frowns. "If this is a pun, I don't get it. I wasn't shirtless."

"Oh, yeah, kind of a bummer, but cursing isn't possible in the Good Place because some people got offended by it. I wanted to say shirtless, but out came shirtless. Ah, fork, you know what I mean."

"Uhh sure..."

"Anyway, shaking with fear, and still going inside of a burning building is very impressive. You were hesitant, but you still did what you thought was right. The people who live here have all heard about it, and they are so very excited to meet you."

Tadashi can't imagine anything more awful than this. He doesn't like being in the spotlight. He's not doing good things for attention. And if he's being entirely honest with himself, he's not doing good things to be good, either. He's doing it because he doesn't know how to handle guilt, and it's easier to avoid it altogether by simply doing what is right. And for that, ironically, he feels guilty too. And now he's being celebrated for his selfish mindset? He needs to put a stop to this.

"Can we please...not make a big deal out of this?"

"Oh, I already heard you were very humble, Tadashi, but I'm sorry, a welcome party in your honor has already been planned, and we'd be very disappointed if you didn't come. Everyone has worked so hard and they're all looking forward to you." 

Tadashi sighs. "Amazing."

"That's my guy. Now come on, bud, there's still a lot for you to see."


End file.
